{"id":63094,"date":"2025-11-21T03:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T03:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/63094\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T03:00:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T03:00:11","slug":"santa-rosa-selects-southern-california-official-to-temporarily-serve-as-citys-top-administrator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/63094\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Rosa selects Southern California official to temporarily serve as city’s top administrator"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Santa Rosa City Council has tapped a veteran Southern California official to temporarily serve as the city\u2019s top administrator as the council searches for the next city executive.<\/p>\n

Lori Ann Farrell will replace outgoing City Manager Maraskeshia Smith, who is leaving in January to take the top job with the city of Sacramento<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mayor Mark Stapp in an announcement Thursday<\/a> described Farrell as an \u201caccomplished and experienced city manager\u201d with a deep understanding of municipal government and city finances who can help lead the city through this transitional period.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe understands the complexities of municipal government and has extensive experience managing challenges like those facing Santa Rosa,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re pleased to have her lead our executive team while we conduct a recruitment to fill this critical position permanently.\u201d<\/p>\n

The council is expected to consider her contract on Dec. 2 and she\u2019ll step into the interim role on Jan. 2 if the agreement is approved. Her proposed salary is $291,200.<\/p>\n

Farrell has more than 35 years experience, most recently serving as city manager in Costa Mesa, where she oversaw a workforce of some 600 employees.<\/p>\n

She was appointed in 2019 and helped guide the city through a period of significant financial growth \u2014 the city\u2019s general fund grew by $10 million and she helped secure a record $16.5 million in grants for parks and open space, according to the announcement.<\/p>\n

Prior to that she worked nine years in Huntington Beach as chief financial officer and assistant city manager and earlier in her career she was the city controller and later chief financial officer in Long Beach.<\/p>\n

Beyond municipal government, Farrell also served on the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners, which oversees operations at the Port of Long Beach. Her work there took her overseas on various trade missions and she assisted in efforts to strengthen economic ties between the port and other countries.<\/p>\n

She has a master\u2019s degree in public administration from Columbia University.<\/p>\n

Farrell takes over the job at a critical time for Santa Rosa, which is facing a multiyear, multimillion dollar deficit. Efforts to raise business and lodging taxes, reduce expenses and shore up reserves have lengthened the runway City Hall has to dig out of the long-term financial hole, budget officials told the council in an October update<\/a>, but deeper cuts will still be required to close a five-year gap pegged at $33.7 million.<\/p>\n

She\u2019ll oversee a workforce of about 1,300 employees and a budget of $553.8 million.<\/p>\n

The city announced Smith\u2019s departure in late September.<\/p>\n

In a resignation letter submitted to the mayor and council, Smith said she was honored to work in the city and pointed to what she described as significant progress on advancing investments in infrastructure, public safety, sustainability and housing during her tenure.<\/p>\n

Smith took on the role in January 2022 becoming the first Black woman to lead the city. Her time was marked by a focus on core public services after years of dedicating resources to wildfire and pandemic response.<\/p>\n

Her departure came as somewhat of a surprise \u2014 a revamped employment agreement the council approved in 2023 included a five-year contract that would\u2019ve kept her in the position until January 2028. Stapp said at the time he wasn\u2019t aware she was in line for the Sacramento job but that Smith was held in high regard among city officials across the state and he wasn\u2019t surprised she\u2019d be in the running for the role.<\/p>\n

The council has met in closed session several times since Oct. 14 to discuss the city manager and interim manager position but has not openly discussed the matter. It\u2019s unclear how many candidates were considered for the interim position.<\/p>\n

A City Hall spokesperson declined to provide additional details about the selection describing the discussions as confidential.<\/p>\n

Farrell is expected to serve in the role until a permanent manager is hired. The city in January anticipates launching an open recruitment for the role that is expected to take six to nine months.<\/p>\n

Farrell said she was eager to bring her experience to Santa Rosa.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to using my three decades of leadership, financial management, and community engagement skills to help Mayor Stapp and the City Council to continue providing a high level of quality services to the Santa Rosa community,\u201d she said in the city statement.<\/p>\n

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @paulinapineda22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Santa Rosa City Council has tapped a veteran Southern California official to temporarily serve as the city\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21117,7,9,8,27198,37988,37987,5556],"class_list":["post-63094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-appointment","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-city-manager","tag-lori-ann-farrell","tag-maraskeshia-smith","tag-santa-rosa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}